Sunscreen use is on the rise, but so are cases of skin cancer. That’s because a poor-quality sunscreen might keep you from getting a sunburn, but it won’t shield skin from UVA rays that cause melanoma. Recently, scientists with the Environmental Working Group tested almost 1,500 sunscreens, moisturizers, and lip balms that advertise sun protection. They found that 73 percent of those products don’t provide the protection consumers think they’re getting. David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, joins Ira to discuss.

Abstract

Background

Female sterilization accounts for 50% of all contraceptive use in the U.S. The extent to which U.S. women with physical and/or sensory disabilities have undergone female sterilization is unknown.

Objective

Our primary objective was to determine the prevalence of sterilization for women with physical/sensory disabilities, and compare this to the prevalence for women without disabilities. We also compared use of long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) methods between women with and without disabilities.

Methods

We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the National Survey of Family Growth 2011–2013, a population-based survey of U.S. women aged 15–44. Bivariate comparisons between women with and without disabilities by female sterilization and LARC use were conducted using chi-square tests. Using logistic regression, we estimated the odds of female sterilization based upon disability status.

Conclusions

The odds of female sterilization is higher among women with physical/sensory disabilities than those without disabilities. Future research is necessary to understand factors contributing to this finding, including possible underutilization of LARC methods.

Abstract

Background

Research into how people with intellectual disabilities (ID) pursue intimate relationships in care settings presents some contradictory findings; despite increasingly liberal staff views, service users experience significant restrictions. This study attempts to explore this gap within a secure hospital, examining service user’s representations of staff discourses about sexuality and intimate relationships.

Method

Semi-structured interviews with eight service users with intellectual disability were analysed using critical discourse analysis.

Results

Analysis enabled construction of 11 themes falling into three categories. Dominant discourses appeared to maintain the integrity of the institution, enable staff to occupy a position of power and demonstrate service users’ responses to perceived control.

Conclusions

Discourses around sex appear to serve the interests of staff and the hospital, while being restrictive and often incomprehensible to service users. Implications for service development, and future research directions, are considered in the context of “Transforming Care.”

Source: The Week (Excerpted from an article that originally appeared in The Washington Post)

Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan

Two hours before sunrise, Dee Matello joined the line outside the Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury, Maryland, where hundreds of people in hoodies, heavy coats, and wool blankets braced against the wind.

Inside, reclining dental chairs were arrayed in rows across the arena’s vast floor. Days later, the venue would host Disney on Ice. On this Friday morning, dentists arriving from five states were getting ready to fix the teeth of the first 1,000 people in line.

Matello was No. 503. The small-business owner, who supports President Donald Trump, had a cracked molar, no dental insurance, and a nagging soreness that had forced her to chew on the right side of her mouth for years.

Although her toothache wasn’t why she voted for Trump, it was a constant reminder of one reason she did: the feeling that she had been abandoned, left struggling to meet basic needs in a country full of fantastically rich people.

According to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, “The science of child development now helps us to see healthy development as a causal chain— policies and programs across the public and private sectors affect the capacities of caregivers and communities to strengthen three foundations of healthy development: stable, responsive relationships; safe, supportive environments; and appropriate nutrition.” These foundations impact physiological mechanisms that have lifelong impacts on cognitive development, physical growth, and behavioral outcomes.3

Report Purpose

It is with this spirit in mind that we will explore opportunities for learning from and leveraging policy development and implementation to continue to create a base of knowledge that can help practitioners from across sectors build bridges to support better health and educational opportunities for vulnerable children and their families. The following policy overview, developed in partnership with the National Farm to School Network and the BUILD Initiative, is intended both to share a broad spectrum of existing information about various experiences in building farm to ECE-supportive policies and begin to point out how forging greater connections between current policies and the work of farm to ECE can benefit early childcare centers, children, and families.

The Good Food, Great Kids* case studies are part of a series developed by pfc Social Impact Advisors for public use and dissemination via the book Good, Evil, Wicked: The Art, Science, and Business of Giving (Stanford University Press 2017), among other publicly accessible media. Information presented was gathered through desk research and 53 interviews with practitioners, policy and issue-area experts, funders, and other local and national stakeholders in the farm to early childcare and education and farm to school sectors. *This report borrows the phrase good food from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which defines good food as food that is “healthy, sustainable, fair, and affordable.”

Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities may face challenges to staying physically active. Rate for adults with IDD meeting PA guidelines (13.5%) was less than half that of the general population (30.8%).

Abstract

Background

Many individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have sedentary lifestyles.

Aims

(a) compare adults with IDD with the general adult population on adherence to U.S. physical activity (PA) guidelines, and (b) determine what factors predict adherence to PA guidelines by adults with IDD.

Methods

We compared adults with IDD from the 2011–2012 National Core Indicators Adult Consumer Survey (NCI-ACS) with the general U.S. population on meeting PA guidelines. We examined the association of demographic, diagnostic, mobility, health and community participation variables with meeting PA guidelines by adults with IDD.

Results

The rate for adults with IDD meeting PA guidelines (13.5%) was less than half that of the general population (30.8%). Among adults with IDD, at-risk groups included those with more severe disability, Down syndrome, mobility impairments, obesity, poor health, mental illness, no independent access to community exercise, and less frequent participation in community exercise. Going out for exercise was the only form of community participation associated with meeting PA guidelines. People who accessed the community for exercise independently (i.e., alone) were more likely to meet PA guidelines.

Conclusions

Interventions aimed at increasing PA for people with IDD should consider these factors in their design.

Summary of Task Force Finding

The Community Preventive Services Task Forcerecommends meal interventions and fruit and vegetable snack interventions to increase the availability of healthier foods and beverages provided by schools. This finding is based on evidence that they increase fruit and vegetable consumption and reduce or maintain the rate of obesity or overweight.

The Task Force has related findings for interventions to increase healthier foods and beverages in schools:

Decades of research have shown that children living in poverty are significantly more likely to develop internalizing and externalizing problems than are their peers who are not poor, with the magnitude of the differential increasing with longer exposure to impoverished conditions. Many of these children are labeled as “at risk” – of academic difficulties, school failure, suspension, expulsion, dropping out, and involvement with the juvenile justice system.

Social-emotional competence in children – the ability to manage emotions, express needs and feelings, deal with conflict, and get along with others – plays a critical role in their cognitive skill building, mental health, and overall well-being. In addition, social-emotional competence has proven to be an important protective factor, buffering children from stressors and aiding in the prevention of serious emotional and behavioral difficulties, such as internalizing and externalizing behaviors.

This Planetree PFE Culture Change Toolkit is designed for health care practices participating in the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, but will be of value to any practice seeking strategies to improve person and family engagement. It provides guidance on creating a practice culture that emphasizes and incorporates the patient and family perspective in every aspect of care, to ultimately improve quality of care.